


Wake Me Up When This Nightmare Ends

by Profrock



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M, Slender, Slenderman - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:55:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Profrock/pseuds/Profrock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Phil get transported into the game Slender and have to survive long enough to collect all eight pages. Will the two friends manage to make it out, or will faceless terror consume them?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wake Me Up When This Nightmare Ends

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, hello! This is the first written work I've ever shown to anyone not my extremely close friend, so please be nice! I'd really appreciate feedback/criticism if any of you would take the time to do it.  
> Enjoy!

Dan woke up from his rather pleasant dream of swimming through space fighting the forces of darkness and evil with the help of a rainbow Australian water buffalo to someone shaking his shoulder and panting his name in hushed, frantic tones. 

“Dan. Dan! Come on, wake up,” the voice hissed. It was Phil, and Dan was cold. He groped at his feet, assuming his raven-haired roommate had pulled his blankets down in an attempt to speed up Dan’s waking-up process. Which, Dan had to admit, was an unappreciated yet highly effective way to get him out of bed in the mornings. 

He didn’t feel any blankets, but the brunet’s hand did brush against something crunchy and scraggly underneath his body. What the hell? His eyes flew open, revealing scattered stars overhead, tiny pinpricks of light against the inky black sky. There was no moon.

“Wh-“ Dan started, bolting upright. He snapped his mouth closed and glanced around furiously, hundreds of thoughts flitting through his head in that split second. Why was he outside? Why was Phil with him? Where was London and his flat and his laptop and coffee? More importantly, where was he?

“Phil?” He turned around frantically, his hands colliding with Phil’s comfortingly solid chest, his fingers twisting into fabric as Dan felt his breathing accelerate. Phil seemed to sense this as well, pulling Dan closer to him and petting the younger’s hair while whispering comforting nonsense.

“Hey Dan, s’okay, I know it’ll be okay, you just need to stand up for me, yeah? Stand up for me so we can – there you go, see? Not that hard,” Phil murmured, slowly coaxing Dan to his feet. Dan took one last shaky breath and released Phil’s shirt, running his hands through his hair as a nervous tic. He mentally cursed his best friend for always being so calm and rational in situations like these, whatever the hell this was.

Phil took a look around. They were standing in what looked to be a forest of some sort, with confusingly similar trees. They did look horribly familiar though…

“Phil?” Dan whimpered, his hand sliding into Phil’s and squeezing hard. Phil squeezed back, grateful for the reassuring contact. 

“Okay,” Phil said, more to himself than anything. “Right. First we need to find out where we are, then we need to find out how to get back home, and then, if we don’t want to bury it into the deep recesses of our minds, never to speak of it again, only then will we figure out how and why we got here.” Dan nodded, spitting out a shred of fingernail. 

“Okay.”

“Right,” Phil said again, nodding his head decisively. He strode forward, Dan stumbling behind him.

After maybe ten paces, Dan let out a soft yelp. Phil whirled around, half expecting something to be attacking Dan. He heard a click and was immediately blinded by bright light. Phil turned away as Dan pointed the torch downwards, mumbling a sheepish apology as Phil blinked the spots away from his vision.

“Found it in my coat pocket,” Dan said, shining it at the ground around their feet, kicking a single twig out of sight range. “Which I was not wearing when I went to bed, thank you very much.” Phil let out a slight sigh of relief; if Dan was getting snarky, then he must be at least a little bit less anxious.

“Yeah, good thing too,” Phil joked, trying to lighten the mood a little. “Or else I’d just be in my pants, which would not be a good experience for either of us.” “Oh, because it’s peachy-fucking-keen minus that detail,” Dan snapped back. Phil glared at him.

“Sorry,” Dan mumbled again, scratching the back of his neck as his ears turned red in shame. “Yeah, I get it,” Phil sighed, rubbing Dan’s shoulder to illustrate no harm done.

“Well, now that we’ve got a torch, that should make it at least a bit easier,” Phil said, with probably undue optimism. But someone had to look on the bright side of their situation, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be Dan.

“Yeah,” Dan said, aiming the light in front of them. The pair continued on, Phil leading and Dan following with the torch, their hands still linked and neither boy with any intention of ever letting go.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Both boys slowed as they approached an unidentifiable shape, huge and intimidating, looming out of the fog in front of them. They approached cautiously, Dan shining the light around for any sign of danger creeping up on them. As they approached the base of the hulking brick structure, something caught Phil’s eye. Something appeared to be stuck to the side of the building. He cautiously tugged Dan’s hand, directing the brunet’s gaze to the flat rectangle. Dan shined the light on it.

It appeared to be a piece of paper, the contents of which couldn’t be read by the boys due to distance. They crept closer, an eerie sense of dread and apprehension building as they approached the page. 

Phil reached out as soon as he was in range, plucking the sheet off the crumbling brick wall with a distinct noise of rustled paper that made both boys shiver. Dan whimpered as he lifted his light to illuminate the sheet, burrowing his face into Phil’s neck to avoid seeing the writing. Phil stared at the note, perplexed.

It was a drawing of what seemed to be a woods, done in pencil with a shaking, inexperienced hand. The person was obviously scared, or a child, or possibly both. There was one ‘tree’ that didn’t seem to match up with the rest, however. This one looked like a person, if anything, with a thin oval resting above a tall, very thin triangle shale with two lines protruding from the bottom and two more hanging down the sides of the ‘body’.

Dan peeked at the page, teeth sinking into Phil’s shoulder in an attempt to muffle the hysterical scream threatening to burst forth from his throat. Phil hissed in pain, scrunching up his face and counting to ten to refrain from yelling himself.

“Wh-hat,” he gasped as soon as he was positive he could speak without screaming. “What was that?”

Dan just shook his head, his breathing coming faster and faster. He dug his fingernails into Phil’s palm, drawing blood.

“It’s – we’re –“ Dan was shaking at this point, practically sobbing from fright. He bit his lip, mentally slapping himself to man up and not be such a fucking wuss. “It’s one of the eight pages,” he said as soon as his breathing calmed enough to permit it. “One of the eight pages we have to collect. We’re in Slender.”

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Phil was silent for a moment, mouth hanging open. He blinked once and shook his head, snapping himself out of it. “Right,” he said briskly. “That’s good.” Dan was almost hyperventilating again. “Good? How is that good? We’re going to bloody die out here, and no one will have the slightest clue of where we are,” he whisper-screamed. Phil gripped Dan’s hand tighter, ignoring the shooting pain that rocketed up his arm from his palm.

“No, that is good,” Phil hissed. “Because now we at least know where we are and how we get out. You’ve read the stories, we just have to collect the eight pages then we win, right? We beat the game?” 

Dan nodded. Some tiny, niggling piece of his brain was fervently rejoicing his previously regarded as bad decisions to repeatedly keep himself awake until ungodly hours of the morning reading creepypasta on his laptop in the dark, but the celebration was short-lived. 

“Okay,” he said, closing his eyes and trying to picture the map he googled out of curiosity at 3:47 am one night because ha had nothing better to do. “This is the silo then. There are ten destinations, pages at eight of them. We should go in a counter-clockwise direction from where we started to minimize time spent randomly wandering. That means that we should go this way until we reach the big rocks.” He set off with a purpose, yanking Phil behind him.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Collecting the second page, simply reading ‘no’ scrawled twelve times in the margins with a drawing of slender dominating the page, was easy enough. The pair heard footsteps behind them once, but neither chose to mention it, preferring to pretend that the sound was nothing but the wind in the leaves.

“Now we go up and left,” Dan muttered. Phil nodded as he attempted to fold the pages with only his right hand, his left firmly surrounded by the warmth of Dan’s right. He eventually gave up, settling for simply clutching the pages in his hand as Dan led him around the area.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Help me,” Phil murmured as he took the third page off the tree trunk. There was no note on the cross wall, so Dan had quickly moved them on to the next landmark. Phil absently wondered how many other people had been here before them. How many had gotten out? How many had died? He shivered slightly at the thought, double-stepping to try and get closer to Dan’s comforting aurora. 

Dan gripped his blue-eyed friend’s hand harder, closing his eyes to try and recall where they needed to go next on the map. The half-tunnel, right. The disembodied footsteps were quicker as the pair moved on, accompanied by a nerve-rattling low drone, eerie and off-putting. 

Phil noticed movement out of the corner of his eye, shock and fear rooting his shoes to the leaf-covered ground. Was it…? Something shifted closer, Phil’s heart racing and his vision going fuzzy.

“Da-“ Phil barely managed to choke out, sobbing with terror. His pulse pounded in his skull. He could feel himself getting lighter, as if he were drifting away from his own body. Dan pulled Phil’s arm, hard. Phil barely registered the pain in his shoulder, still fixated on the deadly, ever-approaching shadow.

Dan finally managed to pull Phil lose, the elder stumbling and all but collapsing on top of the younger as they legged it in the opposite direction.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

They approached the rusted tankers and Dan cursed. He had been meaning to lead them in a loop around the map, but they seemed to have gone in the wrong direction in the midst of their fear. 

“Split up,” Phil said, regretting the idea before the words even touched his lips. Dan turned to face him, panic evident in his eyes. “We’ll cover more ground that way, and it’ll just be fore here, for the tanks.” 

Dan nodded but made no move to release Phil’s hand. Phil pried the brunet’s fingers from around his wrist, pushing him in the opposite direction. “We’ll meet up at the last one, okay? Make sure you check both sides.” Dan nodded mutely again, turning robotically as Phil jogged away down the two tankers that were perpendicular to the other five. 

Dan’s adrenaline-ruined brain was not being terribly helpful as he scanned the rusted metal as quickly and efficiently as he could. His mind kept bringing up horrible scenarios: Phil was going to get lost. He was going to get lost. Dan was going to get abducted by the faceless hellspawn stalking them in this god-forsaken forest and never get to see Phil again. He was going to die, oh god he was going to die. He bit his fist to refrain from making any noise, finally spotting a glowing rectangle and grabbing it with a whoosh of exhaled air. 

Dan sprinted to the corner of the fifth tank, half expecting a seven-foot man to materialize from every shadow and drag him below the waves of consciousness. 

“Did you find it?” Phil suddenly asked over Dan’s shoulder, causing the brow-eyed boy to jump a foot in the air. He slammed back into Phil, the elder stumbling until his back hit the solid tank with a soft grunt due to Dan’s weight. 

“I thought you were gonna die and I was gonna die and oh god never leave me again please,” Dan rambled disjointedly, pressing into Phil.

“Shh,” Phil replied softly, pressing his lips to Dan’s forehead. “I’m not going to, yeah? You’re okay, you’re okay.”

Footsteps approached.

Dan grabbed Phil’s hand and away they ran again.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“There’s either going to be one on the tunnel or one on the truck and tank that way,” Dan pointed. “No we are not going to split up again I don’t care what you say,” the unspoken “I’m not risking losing you” at the forefront of both of their minds. Phil shut his mouth and followed Dan’s lead to the tunnel.

“Shine the light down the inside, they seem to be at least slightly reflective,” Phil suggested in a strained whisper. Being the steady one in the pair right now was putting a huge tax on Phil, try as he might to not show it to Dan. He had to be the strong one, the rational one, the reasonable one, the one who kept Dan together when all Phil wanted to do was run in the opposite direction of any of this. Take Dan and run until his lungs gave out, then keep running some more. Go anywhere. Just away, away from the faceless threat peeking between the leaves, away from the crunching leaves and the oppressive black and the drone of cicadas. Run, and never look back.

Dan jogged – albeit a bit awkwardly, due to his and Phil’s still-attached hands – to the note posted to the interior of the tunnel, reaching out and grabbing it off the wall without even breaking stride. He hung a left as they exited the tunnel, heading straight for the place he knew would be the worst. The toilets.

The wind began to whistle mournfully through the dead branches.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Dan switched off the torch as they were running, hazily remembering reading something about how Slenderman could find you easier with the light on. He shuddered at the thought, the idea feeling something akin to stabbing his heart with an icicle and wrenching it around a few times for good measure. His lungs burned, breaths coming ragged and irregular. He briefly cursed his unwillingness to exercise on a consistent basis, before his attention was snapped back to the situation at hand by the frankly terrifying structure of the toilets quickly approaching.

The brunet bent over for a moment, spiting once and panting with his hands on his knees for a few second before straightening back up and wincing slightly at the ache in his thighs that only made itself known now that they had stopped moving. Phil waited as patiently as he could, cautiously spinning around and around to make sure nothing surprised them.

“Quickly in, quickly out,” Dan said, advancing on the gaping maw of a doorway. It stared down at him, the sight of cracked tile and peeling wallpaper shooting ripples of ice-cold panic down his spine. The mere thought of entering the place had him wanting to curl up into a ball and never look up, how was he going to manage actually entering the building without his knees giving out?

Phil kissed his cheek again, as if sensing the inner mayhem Dan was going through and doing his best to calm it. He readjusted their entwined fingers, ignoring the slick slide of sweat between their palms. Dan made a small noise and turned to Phil again, sliding their mouths together in a desperate, hungry kiss.

Phil pulled away, Dan subconsciously following.

“Not here,” Phil muttered, running his thumb over Dan’s knuckles. “Not now.”

“I know,” Dan said, advancing on the doorway. “But I couldn’t die without having done that at least once.” With that he darted into the doorway, shining the light frantically over every wall, until - 

Found it.

Dan could have screamed with relief, but managed to refrain. Phil scooped up the page, bringing their total up to six. The boys turned around to leave, hearts racing and palms sweating. 

Black dots swan at the edge of their vision, creating a nauseating swimming sensation. Dan started to panic. There were two doors out. If they could manage to exit the cubicle they were currently in, they could run the opposite way.

Another wave of black encroached on Dan’s peripheral vision, narrowing his sight to a measly few-inch scope. He desperately fought the urge to scream, clutching for something, anything to keep him on his feet. He felt a horrible swinging sensation, and then everything went black.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Phil stumbled through the woods, pages folded messily and hastily shoved into his trousers pocket, Dan an uncomfortable and awkward weight in his arms. Phil knew, even as he dropped Dan’s feet from where he had been carrying the younger bridal style that he would probably feel bad about this. He knew, even as he pinned Dan up against a tree by the lapels of his jacket and drew his other hand back that he would never forgive himself for hurting Dan like this. But he could think of no other way to get him to wake up, and Phil needed Dan.

Without Dan there, not only would Phil probably die by the hands of Slenderman, but he wouldn’t fight it. He would sit calmly next to his best friend’s body, carding his fingers through tousled brown hair and wait for death to claim him too. Because it would never be able to just be ‘Phil’. It had always been DanandPhil, and Phil would never be able to go back to merely being ‘Phil’. Hell, he could barely remember a time when it was just ‘Phil’ much less relive it. Dan was like the sun and Phil was like the moon: Once the sun’s light went out, the moon would have nothing left to reflect. Without Dan, Phil would have nothing left to be, or think, or feel.

Or, at least, that was the justification he gave himself when he let his open palm fly forward, connecting solidly with Dan’s cheek.

Dan felt something hit him, a sharp, stinging pain erupting on his cheek. 

“Oi,” he mumbled, rubbing his face. Christ, that hurt like a bitch. “What the hell was that f – oh.” The last bit was mumbled into Phil’s mouth, a welcome cover to Dan’s own. Phil’s vision started to blur before the kiss could advance anywhere beyond a chaste slide of lips, prompting him to grasp Dan’s hand with his own and once more entwine their fingers. 

“Run,” he whispered against Dan’s mouth, and run they did.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

“Don’t look behind you,” Dan panted as they ran. They needed to reach the trucks and big tree before Slenderman reached them. Simple enough, in theory. Not so much in practice. “He’s going to be right up our asses between now and when we get the last two pages, so we just have to go fast and whatever you do don’t look back.”

Phil nodded breathlessly, sprinting after Dan. Dan kept toggling the torch, knowing that the light would alert Slenderman to their location but also careful that they were heading in the correct direction. The shell of a rusted-out pickup truck gleamed in the light, and Dan shut off the torch, pointing Phil to the other vehicle, hoping he would get the message. Phil thankfully understood, releasing Dan and stepping over to the white trailer, making a quick circle around it.

No page.

An unnerving beeping sound started up, out of the blue. Phil pressed one hand over his heart, feeling the startled, frantic beating over the rapid rise and fall of his chest. 

Dan shoved the page into Phil’s right hand and grabbed his left, pulling him along to the location of the eighth and final page.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Static blurred their sight, but Phil could make out enough to see the impressive girth of the tree ahead. He squinted, unable to make out any page on the side of the tree facing them.

Dan’s pace became slower, his feet tripping over each other in their eagerness to move far away from the monster chasing them. Phil turned back to look, a searing pain accompanied by a wave of near-white static washing over him as he turned his head. He paused for the briefest of moments, deaf to Dan’s protests as he picked up the younger boy and slung him onto his back.

Dan squeezed his eyes shut, wave after wave of dizziness, headache, and nausea rolling and crashing inside his head. He mumbled incoherent nonsense, head lolling against Phil’s shoulder.

One hundred paces: Phil was slowing down.

Eighty paces: The static increased to an almost unbearable level, sending the two men reeling momentarily.

Fifty paces: Dan cracked open one eye, black tentacles all he could make out through the haze of white and grey. 

Thirty paces: The dots crowding against Phil’s vision swam, hypnotizing patterns and colors swirling and dancing in front of his eyes. He shook his head to clear it. He could do this.

Twenty paces: “Come on Phil,” Dan muttered hoarsely against the sweat-slicked skin of Phil’s neck. “Come – ah! – on, you can,” he cut himself off with a groan, panting harshly.

Ten paces: Phil’s hand slipped, almost sending Dan tumbling to hard forest floor. He readjusted his grip and kept running.

Five paces: Dan felt the frantic beat of Phil’s heart against his lips.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Phil slammed into the tree, the monstrous trunk quivering ever so slightly with the impact. Blood gushed down his face from his probably broken nose, dripping onto his open lips as he tried to draw a breath.

Dan slid off of Phil’s back as the raven-haired boy collided with the tree, stumbling to reach around the massive trunk for the page. He lurched forward, fingers brushing paper, before the out-of-focus world around him exploded into a bright light, then disappeared.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Dan’s eyes flew open, his body convulsing upwards as he fought to free himself from whatever was restraining his body. He kicked off the duvet, breathless. His hair curled from the sweat tricking down his forehead and neck, and his mouth was dry, very dry. He stumbled out of his bedroom and into the bathroom, cupping his hands under the running tap and drinking from them.

He turned off the faucet, nearly braining himself on the doorframe as he rushed out of the bathroom and into Phil’s room to check if his best friend was all right. If Phil was even there.

Dan panicked at the last thought, throwing himself into Phil’s room to find the elder standing next to his bed in nothing but black boxers. Phil looked exhausted, his face shiny with a sheen of half-dried sweat, hands shaking and legs trembling even as he simply stood.

The brown-eyed boy threw himself at Phil, the ebony-haired man opening his arms and falling back onto the bed, covered in Dan. Dan pressing kisses to every inch of Phil’s face, hands sliding over pale flesh, feeling the man beneath him. 

Phil welcomed the touches, resting his hands on the younger’s hips as he worked their mouths together.

He pulled Dan up to lay with him under the covers, Dan fitting perfectly into the space between Phil’s chin and chest, Phil’s arms wrapping naturally around Dan’s shoulders to pull him in.

Yes, they both thought. This is right.

Phil distantly supposed they would have to talk about everything that had happened at some point, but that time was not now.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

In the months that followed Dan and Phil’s horrific ordeal, they were sure someone had noticed them acting differently. How they would press into each other, even if they had space to spread out, craving the reassurance that the other was still there. How they usually looked tired, laughing off questions about it with a wave of the hand and vague mentions of Tumblr until three in the morning. How they would always link hands when they walked somewhere together, even a gesture as small as locking pinkies. How they never wanted to be out past nightfall, pleading exhaustion or boredom to be able to leave evening events before the sun set.

But what people didn’t see was also there, just as real and even more powerful. How Dan and Phil would always sleep in the same bed, so if Phil woke up screaming in the middle of the night it was to Dan’s comforting embrace and gentle words to lull him back to sleep. How they would huddle together, alone in their apartment, skin on skin, simply relishing the existence of the other’s touch. How, every morning when they woke up, every night, before they went to bed, every time they saw each other, touched, spoke or kissed, they said ‘I love you’. How, every single time they said it, every whisper, murmur, giggle, shout, note, text or moan, every time, they meant it.


End file.
